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We may here adduce the pregnant words of Plato: "Inasmuch as
Intellect perceives the variety and plurality of the Forms
present in the complete Living Being...." The words apply equally
to Soul; Soul is subsequent to Intellect, yet by its very nature
it involves Intellect in itself and perceives more clearly in
that prior. There is Intellect in our intellect also, which again
perceives more clearly in its prior, for while of itself it
merely perceives, in the prior it also perceives its own
perception.
This intellect, then, to which we ascribe perception, though not
divorced from the prior in which it originates, evolves plurality
out of unity and has bound up with it the principle of
Difference: it therefore takes the form of a plurality-in-unity.
A plurality-in-unity, it produces the many intellects by the
dictate of its very nature.
It is certainly no numerical unity, no individual thing; for
whatever you find in that sphere is a species, since it is
divorced from Matter. This may be the import of the difficult
words of Plato, that Substance is broken up into an infinity of
parts. So long as the division proceeds from genus to species,
infinity is not reached; a limit is set by the species generated:
the lowest species, however- that which is not divided into
further species- may be more accurately regarded as infinite. And
this is the meaning of the words: "to relegate them once and for
all to infinity and there abandon them." As for particulars, they
are, considered in themselves, infinite, but come under number by
being embraced by the [total] unity.
Now Soul has Intellect for its prior, is therefore circumscribed
by number down to its ultimate extremity; at that point infinity
is reached. The particular intellect, though all-embracing, is a
partial thing, and the collective Intellect and its various
manifestations [all the particular intellects] are in actuality
parts of that part. Soul too is a part of a part, though in the
sense of being an Act [actuality] derived from it. When the Act
of Intellect is directed upon itself, the result is the manifold
[particular] intellects; when it looks outwards, Soul is
produced.
If Soul acts as a genus or a species, the various [particular]
souls must act as species. Their activities [Acts] will be
twofold: the activity upward is Intellect; that which looks
downward constitutes the other powers imposed by the particular
Reason-Principle [the Reason-Principle of the being ensouled];
the lowest activity of Soul is in its contact with Matter to
which it brings Form.
This lower part of Soul does not prevent the rest from being
entirely in the higher sphere: indeed what we call the lower part
is but an image of Soul: not that it is cut off from Soul; it is
like the reflection in the mirror, depending upon the original
which stands outside of it.
But we must keep in mind what this "outside" means. Up to the
production of the image, the Intellectual realm is wholly and
exclusively composed of Intellectual Beings: in the same way the
Sensible world, representing that in so far as it is able to
retain the likeness of a living being, is itself a living being:
the relation is like that of a portrait or reflection to the
original which is regarded as prior to the water or the painting
reproducing it.
The representation, notice, in the portrait or on the water is
not of the dual being, but of the one element [Matter] as formed
by the other [Soul]. Similarly, this likeness of the Intellectual
realm carries images, not of the creative element, but of the
entities contained in that creator, including Man with every
other living being: creator and created are alike living beings,
though of a different life, and both coexist in the Intellectual
realm.
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